Hello and "yoi otoshi o" (have a happy new year) from J-List!
Dec 31st he here in Japan, and that's a special day in Japan. While people run around town making last minute preparations for the long Japanese holiday. Since Japan closes down completely for three days, except for convenience stores and certain department stores, most people buy all the food and other items they think they'll need during the New Year's festivities. (The post office opens again on Jan 4th.)
In the U.S., at least, New Year's Eve is a time to party, but in Japan this is seldom true. Japanese eat soba (noodles), known as "toshi-koshi soba" ("Cross into the New Year noodles"), which are said to give you a long life, since the noodles are long. They sit in the kotatsu (low table with a heater under it) and eat mikans (mandarin oranges), and look back on the past year. Most Japanese watch the famous Kouhaku (lit. "Red-White"), a 3 hour TV show in which all the famous Japanese singers -- from enka singers to Morning Musume to Japanese rappers -- do "battle" (male singers vs. female singers) by singing songs, to see which team is more talented. Kouhaku is broadcast in something like 80 countries around the world, so if you've got a Japanese TV channel in your cable box, maybe you can get it too. If viewers don't want to watch Kouhaku, don't worry -- all the other TV networks in Japan eagerly fight for ratings with interesting shows of their own.
Another part of New Year's in Japan is eating mochi. Mochi is basically white rice that has been compressed until it's a hard object that looks like white plastic. But when you cook it (in a microwave or toaster oven), it becomes a hot and delicious treat that all Japanese enjoy. It's very, very chewy, and every year a number of elderly Japanese go to their deaths choking on mochi. Since it's made from compressed rice, it's also very high in calories -- there are supposedly two rice bowels of rice crammed into one square of mochi. Some mochi, which may look like a little snowman to Western eyes (a large ball of mochi with a smaller ball on top), is actually ornamental and used as a decoration.
On New Year's Day, it's time to go off to your favorite Shinto shrine for "Hatsumoude" (First Prayer of the New Year), in which you will clap your hands together and pray for happiness. Rather than a religious event, this is a fun thing that Japanese take part in almost universally. When you meet people for the first time in the new year, you tell them "Akemashite omedetou" which literally means "Congratulations on opening [the new year]." The phrase I used above, "Yoi otoshi o" (have a happy new year) is only used before Jan 1.
All rites and customs that have to do with New Year's Day flow from Shinto. Shinto (lit. "Way of the Gods"), if you don't know, is one of the two religions of Japan, and is originally a system of beliefs that there are "kami" (gods or spirits) in things like trees, rocks, mountains -- quite similar to the American Indian beliefs, actually, and logically so, since Japanese and American Indians are probably descended from the same stock. The other religion in Japan are the many flavors of Buddhism (there are as many sects of Buddhism as there are Protestant religions). As a general rule, Japanese turn to Shinto for anything to do with life (marriages, baby christenings), but turn to Buddhism for anything relating to death (funerals).
We've got some nice items for you on the J-List site today, as posted by Mayumi and Yasu and Tomo. New stock of DVDs, including a killer 4 hour DVD from Big Morkal, some fresh stock of new manga and other items, new stock of Japanese "Black Black" caffeinated spicy gum, new toy item, some interesting "wacky" items too, some new $5 magazines, and some new stock of photobooks that have come in. Please check out the new items!
We're still seeing that many customers are getting multiple copies of our J-List mailings. We're still on the problem and hope to have it solved soon. If you are getting multiple copies of our mailings, please email us and we'll check into the problem for you.
Monday, December 31, 2001
Saturday, December 29, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 29, 2001
Greetings from Japan, where tako salad always contains fresh octopus.
We had great time at the J-List year-end party last night, drinking dark German-style beer and fruit sours and eating tons of food, including kimchee nabe (meat, tofu and vegetables simmered in a spicy Korean broth), with sushi and octopus salad. Most of the J-List crew don't drink, but Yasu, Chiharu and I managed to get quite hammered. Most Japanese possess a gene that causes their faces to turn bright red when they drink alcohol, by the way, in case you've ever noticed it. Yasu was especially red last night, all over his body, and his wife had to come pick him up.
J-List has been honored to be able to bring a wide range of Japanese pop culture goods to customers around the world for five years now. We've got customers in practically every country in the world, including Luxumbourg, South Africa, and even Iran. I recently ran a script to see where most of J-List's customers were located. Not surprisingly, the lion's share of J-List customers are in the U.S. and Canada, where Internet connection rates are the highest. England and Australia are also well represented. In Europe, countries with a lot of interest in Japan order from J-List, with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands in the lead. In Asia, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong have the front position. We've also got quite a few customers in South America, especially in counties with large Nikkei (Japanese descended) populations.
When foreigners come to Japan, it seems they are always striving for a way to understand the country and put it into some kind of context. Some gaijin who like anime or manga try to see Japan through the eyes of their particular hobby, while others try to view the country through, say, Japanese martial arts. Another way to understand Japan is through its dramas. In the U.S., the "basic" unit of television entertainment is the 30 minute situation comedy, but in Japan, dramas are the most popular form of television, and there are always several running at any given time on Japan's major networks. Featuring famous stars and dramatic romantic situations, each weekly episode of a standard Japanese drama is an hour, and dramas generally run for 15 weeks, building up to a big dramatic finale. The people and places in popular Japanese dramas become cultural symbols that all Japanese recognize -- for example, when Masaru Fukuyama played the character of the kind oldest brother in the drama "Under One Roof," the name of his character became an icon of its own, and he's forever known as "Chii-niichan" because of that role. Japanese dramas are broadcast in many countries in Asia and spottily in the U.S. (if you have access to a Japanese TV channel), or can be rented from Japanese video rental stores if you can't find them any other way. Watching Japanese dramas can provide "hooks" for foreigners wanting to learn more about the country and culture, and they're fun to watch, too.
We'll be going ahead with the checkout system upgrade for the J-List site, which will add the much-requested "express checkout." Once you've checked out with the site once, you'll be able to quickly checkout in the future, and the system will remember your credit card information, too. As always, there's a chance something could break, so if you have a problem ordering from our site, you can always use the secure email form link.
For the weekend update, we've got a big slew of new products for you, including:
We've updated the J-Mate site again, this time with a killer English interview with Sally Yoshino that gives a lot of insight into her as an adult video performer. The site is located at http://www.jmate.com
We had great time at the J-List year-end party last night, drinking dark German-style beer and fruit sours and eating tons of food, including kimchee nabe (meat, tofu and vegetables simmered in a spicy Korean broth), with sushi and octopus salad. Most of the J-List crew don't drink, but Yasu, Chiharu and I managed to get quite hammered. Most Japanese possess a gene that causes their faces to turn bright red when they drink alcohol, by the way, in case you've ever noticed it. Yasu was especially red last night, all over his body, and his wife had to come pick him up.
J-List has been honored to be able to bring a wide range of Japanese pop culture goods to customers around the world for five years now. We've got customers in practically every country in the world, including Luxumbourg, South Africa, and even Iran. I recently ran a script to see where most of J-List's customers were located. Not surprisingly, the lion's share of J-List customers are in the U.S. and Canada, where Internet connection rates are the highest. England and Australia are also well represented. In Europe, countries with a lot of interest in Japan order from J-List, with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands in the lead. In Asia, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong have the front position. We've also got quite a few customers in South America, especially in counties with large Nikkei (Japanese descended) populations.
When foreigners come to Japan, it seems they are always striving for a way to understand the country and put it into some kind of context. Some gaijin who like anime or manga try to see Japan through the eyes of their particular hobby, while others try to view the country through, say, Japanese martial arts. Another way to understand Japan is through its dramas. In the U.S., the "basic" unit of television entertainment is the 30 minute situation comedy, but in Japan, dramas are the most popular form of television, and there are always several running at any given time on Japan's major networks. Featuring famous stars and dramatic romantic situations, each weekly episode of a standard Japanese drama is an hour, and dramas generally run for 15 weeks, building up to a big dramatic finale. The people and places in popular Japanese dramas become cultural symbols that all Japanese recognize -- for example, when Masaru Fukuyama played the character of the kind oldest brother in the drama "Under One Roof," the name of his character became an icon of its own, and he's forever known as "Chii-niichan" because of that role. Japanese dramas are broadcast in many countries in Asia and spottily in the U.S. (if you have access to a Japanese TV channel), or can be rented from Japanese video rental stores if you can't find them any other way. Watching Japanese dramas can provide "hooks" for foreigners wanting to learn more about the country and culture, and they're fun to watch, too.
We'll be going ahead with the checkout system upgrade for the J-List site, which will add the much-requested "express checkout." Once you've checked out with the site once, you'll be able to quickly checkout in the future, and the system will remember your credit card information, too. As always, there's a chance something could break, so if you have a problem ordering from our site, you can always use the secure email form link.
For the weekend update, we've got a big slew of new products for you, including:
- First of all, some great new magazines, including the new Video Boy and Best Videos, the two "all purpose adult video magazines" that feature all lovely AV idols from Japan
- For fans of Ami Ayukawa, we have a very cool item, a special magazine dedicated to nothing but this lovely lady, all throughout
- If you like magazines with discs in them, check out the new issue of DVD Wow! we've got in, featuring a full color magazine and 120 minutes of AV for you, on a region free DVD
- For photobook fans, we've got some nice items for you, including a very rare item capturing the lovely nudes of eight lovely Russian models (Russian girls are popular in Japan)
- Also: fresh stock of Strawberry Diary with Honami Seki
- If you love lovely girls and asses, we recommend the dynamite Hip Paradise, featuring the lovely ass and leg photographs of Kaya Asami and Hitomi Ikeno
- For manga fans, we've got a large number of all-new books, including manga from Do Comics, Fujimi Comics and more
- Also, we've posted a bunch of fresh stock of sold-out items, including manga by Yui Toshiki, fresh stock of "Motherhood And Sexuality" and "Sexbeast Fight Vaginass " and more
- Out doujinshi special ends soon, and we've got more doujinshi for you to grab, all new and all in single issues so they'll go fast (so hurry)
- We've got many new video and DVD items for you. From Audaz, enjoy the "Shameful Love" of Rin Tomosaki, who is made to do embarrassing and shameful things on video
- From Moodyz, there's a super special all-lesbian video ("Lesbian Room"), followed by the indies debut of Minami Yoshikawa, a favorite "demure type" AV idol that Tomo and I like
- From Waap, we've got a great "Dream Shower" performance for zamen fans, starring Nana Houshou (known for her beautiful legs), followed by a very erotic new Aika Miura video ("A disguise of actress, her nature of a slut")
- From Soft on Demand, we've got a "reverse fucking" offering with the lovely karate black belt "ball breaker" Erika Nagai, an all-lotion cat-fight video in which girls fight in a pool of lotion in which the losers are raped on-camera, and finally, a super "special edit version" of Nanami Nanase's Fan Thanks Day
- From Wanz Factory, there's a great indies DVD featuring the "super angle of manko" (pussy) of Natsumi Kawahama
- For fans of the lovely Shinobu Kasagi, of White Sexual Desire fame, she's got a new 120 minute bondage DVD, great fun
- There's a dynamite *four hour* erotic cosplay DVD, with lots of anime costume sex, and a DVD dedicated to watching women have sex from behind (doggy style)
- Finally, for fans of the beautiful AV gals, check out Shinobu rei's very lovely Love Juice video
- Also: look for more discounted video items on our discount video page (they ship free)
- For Star Wars fans, we've posted more of the "super deformed" Star Wars talking figures, which speak lines from the movies when you put them on your hand (Stormtrooper and Darth Vader)
- Also on our anime & toy page, we've got fresh stock of the very cool Godzilla 2002 Deluxe Figure, Deluxe Ghidora, Gamera, and the Love Hina SkyLuv Project figure, as well as an excellent new toy figure for Japanese professional wrestling fans, and more
- If you like Hello Kitty, check out the new items we've posted, including Hello Kitty rice bowl, fresh stock of Hello Kitty towel holder, and more
- For our Japanese snack lovers, we've got fresh stock of Morinaga Carmel, a cool brand of carmels that have been around for over 100 years, as well as a totally cute Hamutaro Peanuts and Choco snack that comes with cool Hamutaro characters tags
- We've got new calendars! Well, they're not really "new" per se, but we've freed up some very nice calendars by deleting some old orders that hadn't been paid for -- it's a great second chance to pick up that swimsuit or idol calendar you'd like to have
- Finally, we've got a great way to massage your neck and back, a "pollen and cold mask" which you wear to protect yourself and others from pollen and germs, and more cool New Years' items, including fresh stock of the square "masu" sake cups (you can drink sake out of them, or use them to organize your workspace since they look so cool
We've updated the J-Mate site again, this time with a killer English interview with Sally Yoshino that gives a lot of insight into her as an adult video performer. The site is located at http://www.jmate.com
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 26, 2001
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Monday, December 24, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 24, 2001
The warmest wishes to everyone for a Merry Christmas from J-List!
It's Christmas Eve in Japan, and to the Japanese, it's a time to have a special dinner that Okaasan (mother) makes. Over the past 20 years, the idea of giving a Christmas present has taken hold (helped along by Toys R Us Japan), and so most Japanese kids can expect a special present from their parents, or maybe their grandparents, too. Presents are also exchanged by young people, and of course boyfriend and girlfriend. Older Japanese, for whom Christmas is an "outside" thing, don't usually give gifts. The other "big event" that is related to Christmas Eve is that it's the #1 night for girls to lose their virginity, and for weeks in advance love hotels are booked solid with couples waiting for this perfect night.
We won't be having a White Christmas on the Kanto Plain this year, but it certainly a cold and windy one. Geographically Japan is a very vertically oriented country, and the farther north you go the colder things get, until you are in "Yuki-guni," or Snow Country, the setting (and title) of the famous novel by Kawabata. Known as the Tohoku region of Japan, the northern part of the main island of Honshu (roughly everything north of Tokyo) is an interesting area, and have hitchhiked up there several times. A cold and lonely area, with few large cities, Tohoku is cursed with a problem many Japanese rural areas face: shrinking populations as young people go to live in larger cities, leaving nothing but old people at home. Tohoku is the birthplace of many singers of "enka," a sad form of traditional Japanese music that corresponds to country music in the U.S. (i.e., truck drivers listen to it). As you travel through Japan, you can see how Japanese architecture changes to reflect the regional climate. In the Tohoku area of Japan, houses are constructed with roofs that are slanted, to keep snow from piling up, and the front doors are extra-insulated to keep the heat in.
First of all, we've done our final price reduction on the 2002 calendars, and most of them are all the way down to $10, which is way below our cost. If you'd like to pick up a couple of these lovely calendars at this price, please help us out, we'd greatly appreciate it. The calendars that are still in stock are mostly the Japanese swimsuit and lovely actress/idol calendars, and some of the girls are really lovely. And you can put these up in your office without getting in trouble ^_^
For this yuletide update, we've got some very nice items for you, including:
Remember that J-List is having a "free shipping sale" on all English-language bishoujo games and doujin CG collections from San Diego. This is a great time to snap up those JAST USA, Himeya Soft, Peach Princess or other titles you've been wanting but don't get for Christmas.
It's Christmas Eve in Japan, and to the Japanese, it's a time to have a special dinner that Okaasan (mother) makes. Over the past 20 years, the idea of giving a Christmas present has taken hold (helped along by Toys R Us Japan), and so most Japanese kids can expect a special present from their parents, or maybe their grandparents, too. Presents are also exchanged by young people, and of course boyfriend and girlfriend. Older Japanese, for whom Christmas is an "outside" thing, don't usually give gifts. The other "big event" that is related to Christmas Eve is that it's the #1 night for girls to lose their virginity, and for weeks in advance love hotels are booked solid with couples waiting for this perfect night.
We won't be having a White Christmas on the Kanto Plain this year, but it certainly a cold and windy one. Geographically Japan is a very vertically oriented country, and the farther north you go the colder things get, until you are in "Yuki-guni," or Snow Country, the setting (and title) of the famous novel by Kawabata. Known as the Tohoku region of Japan, the northern part of the main island of Honshu (roughly everything north of Tokyo) is an interesting area, and have hitchhiked up there several times. A cold and lonely area, with few large cities, Tohoku is cursed with a problem many Japanese rural areas face: shrinking populations as young people go to live in larger cities, leaving nothing but old people at home. Tohoku is the birthplace of many singers of "enka," a sad form of traditional Japanese music that corresponds to country music in the U.S. (i.e., truck drivers listen to it). As you travel through Japan, you can see how Japanese architecture changes to reflect the regional climate. In the Tohoku area of Japan, houses are constructed with roofs that are slanted, to keep snow from piling up, and the front doors are extra-insulated to keep the heat in.
First of all, we've done our final price reduction on the 2002 calendars, and most of them are all the way down to $10, which is way below our cost. If you'd like to pick up a couple of these lovely calendars at this price, please help us out, we'd greatly appreciate it. The calendars that are still in stock are mostly the Japanese swimsuit and lovely actress/idol calendars, and some of the girls are really lovely. And you can put these up in your office without getting in trouble ^_^
For this yuletide update, we've got some very nice items for you, including:
- First, we've got some excellent new magazines for you, including the new Dela Beppin, filled with lovely girls including Maiko Kazano (heart)
- We've got a treat for adult magazine collectors, a cache of older Japanese magazines from 2000, which feature some very popular actresses who are unfortunately retired now, and quite hard to find -- check magazine page 3 for the newly posted and discounted items. Once these sell out, they will be gone for good...
- For fans of erotic nude photography, we have another elegant issue of Photoshot for you, featuring some of the most lovely photographs we've seen in a long time
- Also, we've got fresh stock of several of the Strawberry Diary series by nude photographer Garo Aida
- For fans of hot Japanese AV stars like Anna Ohura, Natsumi Kawahama and more, we present Dynamite Body Sexual Collection, a nice new photobook for you
- We have fresh stock of some previously sold out photobooks, including Weekend Party, Love Target, and many more
- If you're a fan of the very cool erotic manga we carry at J-List, check out the new volumes we've posted
- In addition to the new manga, we've got fresh stock of some sold-out manga, including Lovely Eyes, Rocket Oppai, Stripper Mai and more
- Remember that our Doujinshi sale is still on -- buy 5, get $20 off -- and we've posted some nice new doujinshi
- For fans of J-List's adult DVD, we've got another great selection of new items. From Wanz Factory, we've got an erotic How to Perfect series DVD for fans of the leggy and sexy Kaori Shimizu, followed by a Happy Date with Yuuna Akimoto
- From Moodyz, vol 2 in the very best-selling Dream Gakuen series, featuring an all-star cast including Bunko Kanazawa, Mami Gotoh and more -- over 30 girls in this 190 minute production
- From Soft on Demand, we've got some great new items, including an erotic DVD for fans of "Kissing, oral sex and horse-riding style sex," a graceful and erotic "Zenra Swimming" (featuring an actual semi-pro swimmer swimming gracefully in the water, all photographed with underwater camera), and Vol. 2 of the popular "Anal Torture" 2-in-1 DVD from Deep's
- From Waap, a super erotic Dream Shower video starring one of Yasu's favorite AV idols, Mirai Hoshizaki
- Audaz chimes in with a new "Shameful Love" video starring Aya Otosaki, and a very nice an erotic video and DVD featuring Momo Kawai
- Finally, a bizarre item from Aroma, we present the ultimate"panty line fetish" video that captures beautiful Japanese women walking with tight pants, very nice
- For fans of Miyazaki's animation, we've got a very nice item we'll try to carry more of in the future: color film comics from Miyazaki's movies, which present all animation from the movie in a great format. See vol. 1 & 2 of Nausica and Spirited Away on the English Manga page now (although this manga is in Japanese)
- Since it's Christmas, we've got an extra volley of cool toy items for you. Macross fans should check the restock of the dynamite VF-1A and the limited stock (as in one copy) of the VF-1S "Skull 1" that is just too cool to live
- For serious collectors of My Neighbor Totoro items, we've got some very rare items from the Totoro's Wonder Tin Toy Collection, featuring toys that are made out of tin, in the tradition of the toys of the 1950's
- Our Capcom toy line has sold so well, we've posted stock of the Capcom vs. SNK super deformed figures that are really cute
- For bento fans, we've got fresh stock of two conservative colors of bento boxes, for those who are a little embarrassed to eat out of a cute Hamutaro box
- On our Japanese snacks page, we've got a tasty package of rice crackers and nori, along with fresh stock of two of the most popular Pocky items, Mousse Pocky White and Strawberry (Mmmm...)
- Finally, for those interested in traditional Japanese decorations, see the very nice "Maneki-neko" (Inviting Cat) piggy banks we have in stock, which are associated with good luck and business success in the new year -- it's really cool.
Remember that J-List is having a "free shipping sale" on all English-language bishoujo games and doujin CG collections from San Diego. This is a great time to snap up those JAST USA, Himeya Soft, Peach Princess or other titles you've been wanting but don't get for Christmas.
Saturday, December 22, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 22, 2001
Greetings from Japan, where a hamburger with a bun is a hamburger, but hamburger meat alone is a "hamburg." Consequently, a hot dog with bun is a "frankfurter" but a dog by itself (say, on a stick) is just a "frankfurt."
One of my life's goals has been achieved today -- I have officially received my "eijuuken," or my permanent resident visa for living in Japan. I drove to the administration office for foreigners' visas today and got the stamp in my passport. Since I've lived in Japan almost ten years and am married to a Japanese national and have kids here, it was not that much of a problem for me, but this isn't the case for millions of other foreigners living in Japan, who have a harder time of it than I do. I have a friend who's a major Japanophile and who wants to live in Japan all his life, but because he's single, it's much harder for him to show the authorities why he should be given permanent residence status.
Incidentally, although it's possible for foreigners who get Japanese citizenship (all the Hawaiian sumo wrestlers like Konishiki do it), I wouldn't go to the trouble myself. There are too many little "plusses" when you're a foreigner living in Japan. For one, you get to use an International drivers' license all the time, rather than having to switch to a Japanese license. Since you're not in the computers of the Japanese police, you never get traffic tickets if you get stopped for something.
When you learn a language, there are always some things that are more complex than the language you're coming from. If I were to learn Spanish, for example, I'd have to deal with feminine and masculine nouns, which don't exist in English. In English, we use "wear" or "put on" for just about any kind of object of clothing you could think of, but the Japanese have different words for where you're wearing the item in question. For anything going on your legs or feet (shoes, pants, etc.) the verb for to wear is "haku." For anything you wear around your abdomen, or for dresses, the verb is "kiru" (the "ki" from this verb is part of the word kimono, which really just means "thing that you wear"). Put something on your hands, like a ring or gloves, and you use "suru," and anything worn on the head is "kaburu." Similarly, the Japanese have two concepts for cold, one for cold in the air around you, and another for things that are cold to the touch. If the air around you is cold, you use "samui," but if you're washing dishes in cold water, the words is "tsumetai." Whichever one comes out of your mouth, it's pretty certain to be there wrong one for the situation you're in. Foreigners making mistakes like using the wrong word for cold are "cute" to the Japanese, kind of like Japanese making L/R mistakes (e.g., the Japanese sent us Viagra last December because we couldn't get an election).
We've improved the organization of the DVD pages slightly. Now, all of the non-SOD Indies DVDs (which are almost without exception zoned for region 2) appear in grouped with Japan-release hentai DVDs and other region-2 zoned DVDs together on the new "Indies, Hentai & Region 2" page. This way, those who have region-free players or can view the DVDs on their computer's DVD-ROM drives can find all the region-2 DVDs in one place, and we can get away with a simpler organization.
Speaking of region 2, since it's a fact of life that some DVDs from Japan (adult indies and Japan-released anime and hentai DVDs) are going to have the region encoding, we've made a new DVD Region 2 Help page, incorporating all our links to hacks and informative pages on how to view region 2 DVDs. The simplest solution to to the problem is to buy a region-free DVD player. The model we recommend, the Sampo DVE-611, is a low, low $129 from several online resellers. See our new DVD page for the links.
For the pre-weekend update, we've got some very nice items for you. They include:
J-List carries monthly subscriptions to many Japanese magazines in two categories. First, we've got "timed" subscriptions (6 or 12 months) to magazines like Urecco, Bejean and Gokuh, for which you pay up front but get free issues with your subscriptions. You can get some anime, manga, JPOP, hobby and other magazines sent to you each month from Japan, while they're hot on the newsstands here, via our "reserve subscription" system, which allows you to get each month's magazines sent to you automatically, until you tell us to stop. Tomo and Yasu work hard to bring these magazines to you, and are often driving around Isesaki to bookstores when we don't get enough issues sent to us by our distributors, and we're glad we can make these items available to you.
Some time ago, J-List had a "text-based mailing list" via which we'd sent text versions of updated J-List pages to people who requested to be added to the list. With all the updates to the site over the summer, this list stopped going out, but we've fixed the scripts that were broken, so customers can now once again request the jlist-text list. If you want notification of J-List product including lists of actual products (good for people who can't view the J-List site all the time), and don't mind the long emails, just reply to this and asked to be added to the list.
One of my life's goals has been achieved today -- I have officially received my "eijuuken," or my permanent resident visa for living in Japan. I drove to the administration office for foreigners' visas today and got the stamp in my passport. Since I've lived in Japan almost ten years and am married to a Japanese national and have kids here, it was not that much of a problem for me, but this isn't the case for millions of other foreigners living in Japan, who have a harder time of it than I do. I have a friend who's a major Japanophile and who wants to live in Japan all his life, but because he's single, it's much harder for him to show the authorities why he should be given permanent residence status.
Incidentally, although it's possible for foreigners who get Japanese citizenship (all the Hawaiian sumo wrestlers like Konishiki do it), I wouldn't go to the trouble myself. There are too many little "plusses" when you're a foreigner living in Japan. For one, you get to use an International drivers' license all the time, rather than having to switch to a Japanese license. Since you're not in the computers of the Japanese police, you never get traffic tickets if you get stopped for something.
When you learn a language, there are always some things that are more complex than the language you're coming from. If I were to learn Spanish, for example, I'd have to deal with feminine and masculine nouns, which don't exist in English. In English, we use "wear" or "put on" for just about any kind of object of clothing you could think of, but the Japanese have different words for where you're wearing the item in question. For anything going on your legs or feet (shoes, pants, etc.) the verb for to wear is "haku." For anything you wear around your abdomen, or for dresses, the verb is "kiru" (the "ki" from this verb is part of the word kimono, which really just means "thing that you wear"). Put something on your hands, like a ring or gloves, and you use "suru," and anything worn on the head is "kaburu." Similarly, the Japanese have two concepts for cold, one for cold in the air around you, and another for things that are cold to the touch. If the air around you is cold, you use "samui," but if you're washing dishes in cold water, the words is "tsumetai." Whichever one comes out of your mouth, it's pretty certain to be there wrong one for the situation you're in. Foreigners making mistakes like using the wrong word for cold are "cute" to the Japanese, kind of like Japanese making L/R mistakes (e.g., the Japanese sent us Viagra last December because we couldn't get an election).
We've improved the organization of the DVD pages slightly. Now, all of the non-SOD Indies DVDs (which are almost without exception zoned for region 2) appear in grouped with Japan-release hentai DVDs and other region-2 zoned DVDs together on the new "Indies, Hentai & Region 2" page. This way, those who have region-free players or can view the DVDs on their computer's DVD-ROM drives can find all the region-2 DVDs in one place, and we can get away with a simpler organization.
Speaking of region 2, since it's a fact of life that some DVDs from Japan (adult indies and Japan-released anime and hentai DVDs) are going to have the region encoding, we've made a new DVD Region 2 Help page, incorporating all our links to hacks and informative pages on how to view region 2 DVDs. The simplest solution to to the problem is to buy a region-free DVD player. The model we recommend, the Sampo DVE-611, is a low, low $129 from several online resellers. See our new DVD page for the links.
For the pre-weekend update, we've got some very nice items for you. They include:
- First, the excellent new Bejean, the famous extra-wide adult magazine from Eichi Publishing -- features everyone from Kanabun to Hitomi Hayasaka and more
- We've also got fresh stock of some more discounted magazines, as well as the new issue of the very hardcore "wet" magazine Aishite Ageru (I'll Love You)
- If you dig Japan's outrageous kogals, the girls with questionable moral, we've got a large-format Cho Mach!! for you
- Other photobooks are in stock, including the excellent swimsuit hardcover photobook by Mayumi Uehara, a beautiful new Photoshot with Mai Hagiwara and many other lovely ladies, fresh stock of Mai-chan's "Tennyo" photobook, and more
- For leg lovers, we've got some stock of the sold-out Mini-Suka Deluxe June issue, which features excellent "low angle" photographs
- Also, fresh stock of many formerly out of stock photobooks, including several in the Bishoujo Memorial series, and the long-lost photobook of Bauko Euchi, on the photobooks page
- On our manga page, we've got several excellent new volumes by Tsukasa Comics, Orange Comics and others, as well as fresh stock of the very nice "Heartthrob on a crowded tain"
- We also have some new doujinshi for you, including new works from Ryu-Seki-Do and more
- From Soft on Demand, a bunch of region-free DVDs for you, including two fun productions that make use of their Magic Mirror Bus -- Amateur Bukkake, and the all-new Magic Mirror Reverse Nampa, in which lovely ladies engage in "boy hunting"
- Kurumi Morishita's "Forbidden Privates Garden" was one of the best-selling lesbian titles ever, and now it's out on DVD for fans of this great gal
- Another region-free release, and a super one for swimsuit fetish fans (yes, they think of everything here in Japan), the Swimming Girl series features hot AV idols like the popular Shinobu Kasagi performing in Olympic-grade name-brand swimming suits
- Another interesting performance is Kitora!, an erotic "Sentai" production in the spirit of Kamen Rider and Kikaida, parodying the best Japanese rubber monsters and Power Ranger's style fighting
- On our slightly reorganized adult DVD and video pages, we've got some great new items, including top-notch erotic performances by two classy Japanese actresses, Ayaka Fujisaki and the silky Manami Suzuki, released by Moodyz
- From Wanz Factory, we've got a new super leg fetish production, this time featuring the excellent Kaori Shimizu, followed by Marin Kobayakawa's own "How to Perfect"
- If you like the popular fetish known in Japan as "new half" or "Mr. Lady," we've got a new video for you from GloryQuest
- For the bargain-minded, find many big bargains on the Discount Videos page, which come with free shipping, to boot
- Finally, for anyone who appreciates the beautiful grace of stripper Kaori Shimamura, we've got a nice soft porn DVD for her fans
- For fans of the Kodansha Bilingual Comics, which let you enjoy famous Japanese manga in English and Japanese, we've got Cardcaptor Sakura vol 5 and Love Hina vol 8 in stock
- If you're into Macross, we've got a very cool limited-run die-cast metal recreation of two Valkyrie slips, and it comes in a display case that's to die for
- Two other unique items on the Anime & Toys page are a dynamite Kubrick figure of Tony the Tiger, and the ultimate item for the Seattle Mariners fan, cute little Ichiro action figures!
- For fans of cute things from Japan, especially Hello Kitty (the symbol of "cute" after all), we've got a bunch of new items, including fresh stock of the sold-out Hello Kitty Happiness Bags, Hello Kitty cake mix (make a kitty-cake in just 1.5 minutes), Hello Kitty mayonnaise cups, Hello kitty chopsticks, Hello kitty cupcake papers, and of course fresh stock of our trademark Hello Kitty toilet paper
- Since cute Japanese hamsters are fast becoming their own category of item, we've got more Hamster Club bento boxes, fork and spoon sets, a new Hamster lollipop + hard candy item, and more Hamutaro Gum (not hamster-flavored, as far as I know)
- We've got more wacky signs for you, including fresh stock of wacky "Emegency Exit" sign plates that come complete with tape for mounting
- On our Japanese snacks & food page, enjoy a tasty new set of miso soup, with bits of fried tofu in them (tastes great, even if it doesn't sound so good in English), as well as fresh stock of the sold-out March of the Koalas chocolate-filled koala cookies
- Finally, new items on our "traditional" things from Japan page include some nice chopsticks that are easy for foreigners to eat with, some onsen (hot springs) bath powder for your bath, and more.
J-List carries monthly subscriptions to many Japanese magazines in two categories. First, we've got "timed" subscriptions (6 or 12 months) to magazines like Urecco, Bejean and Gokuh, for which you pay up front but get free issues with your subscriptions. You can get some anime, manga, JPOP, hobby and other magazines sent to you each month from Japan, while they're hot on the newsstands here, via our "reserve subscription" system, which allows you to get each month's magazines sent to you automatically, until you tell us to stop. Tomo and Yasu work hard to bring these magazines to you, and are often driving around Isesaki to bookstores when we don't get enough issues sent to us by our distributors, and we're glad we can make these items available to you.
Some time ago, J-List had a "text-based mailing list" via which we'd sent text versions of updated J-List pages to people who requested to be added to the list. With all the updates to the site over the summer, this list stopped going out, but we've fixed the scripts that were broken, so customers can now once again request the jlist-text list. If you want notification of J-List product including lists of actual products (good for people who can't view the J-List site all the time), and don't mind the long emails, just reply to this and asked to be added to the list.
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 19, 2001
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Monday, December 17, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 17, 2001
Hello again from Japan!
When is the color blue really green? When you're in Japan. For some reason that we're not able to fathom at all, the color green is often called "blue" ("ao" or "aoi") in Japanese. When foreigners come to Japan, they learn that the color green is "midori," but when you see a green traffic light, Japanese universally describe he light as "ao" (blue). If you go to Aomori Prefecture, don't look for a "blue forest" because there isn't one, but there are plenty of green forests. When they buy fresh vegetables, Japanese say they want to find the ones that are "ichiban aoi" (the most blue). Why is this? Tomo thinks that it's because a long time ago, there was another kanji that described the color green, but it unfortunately had the same reading (pronunciation) as the normal character for blue, "ao." Through some mechanism that is beyond my comprehension, certain objects (the green of a traffic signal, the green of a leaf on a tree) are described as "ao" (which means blue today), while the actual color green is "midori." Like bowing to a vending machine that has just verbally thanked you for making a purchase, it's all part of the wackiness of living in Japan.
There's an unfortunate phenomenon that affects all Japanese who use computers or "waapro" (word processors) at work: they lost almost all ability to write Kanji, Chinese characters. With the steady acceptance of computers into Japanese life, many people use keyboards all day long, and as a result, almost never actually write characters by hand. Because kanji is a very structured system, not writing it for long periods of time really makes you forget how to write (although reading ability is retained). I imagine this happens not only with Japanese, but with all cultures that use kanji. Sadly, I am affected by this as well, as I almost never hand-write Japanese anymore, and it's shocking when I go to write an elementary character but can't bring it up in my mind.
I remember reading through old Saint Seiya manga, while in college in the 80's, and wondering why they always write the blood type of each character along with their name, age and astrological sign. In Japan, though, it's believed that you can tell a lot about a person's personality and character traits from his blood type. Type A people are neat, tidy, and plan things meticulously, almost to a fault. Type B are "going my way" (as the Japanese say), meaning that they do their own thing without worrying about the eyes of others, and don't plan things out in advance. They can be messy, and tend to act on impulse (I am B, and my wife is always commenting on why do some things I do based on my blood type). Type O people have a private world inside their minds, supposedly, and they're quick to become passionate about something, but then change to something else just as easily. Type O people are the ability to lead others. Finally, AB have "two faces," one that they make in front of some people and another one they keep to themselves. Like the various beliefs (myths) that are related to Buddhism (such as, you're not supposed to sleep with your pillow pointing north, as this is reserved for the dead before cremation), the Japanese blood type beliefs are hard to get used to at first, but when you live here long enough, you start thinking there might be something to them after all...
We thank all customers who have helped make the 2002 Calendar Season such a big success. We've still got almost 100 2002 wall calendars in stock, almost all in the "attractive swimsuit model or actress" category (although we have quite a few of the Bondage Nude and airbrush tattoo erotica calendars too). If you can find it in your heart to take a calendar or two off our hands, we'd appreciated (and we've reduced prices yet again!) Also of note are the Ryoko Hirosue and Norika Fujiwara desktop calendar/diaries that are very cool.
For the new update to the J-List page, we've got another great volley of products for you, including:
Bewildered at Bishoujo? Confused about Kogal? Head hurting over Hentai? If you're confused at some of the terms used on the J-List site and this updates list (which can be quite out there, we admit), be sure to check out our online J-List Glossary of Terms -- the link is on our site, right below the product category listing on the left side of your browser window. We explain all confusing terms from Anime to Tekoki and more. If there are any terms we haven't covered adequately, please let us know.
When is the color blue really green? When you're in Japan. For some reason that we're not able to fathom at all, the color green is often called "blue" ("ao" or "aoi") in Japanese. When foreigners come to Japan, they learn that the color green is "midori," but when you see a green traffic light, Japanese universally describe he light as "ao" (blue). If you go to Aomori Prefecture, don't look for a "blue forest" because there isn't one, but there are plenty of green forests. When they buy fresh vegetables, Japanese say they want to find the ones that are "ichiban aoi" (the most blue). Why is this? Tomo thinks that it's because a long time ago, there was another kanji that described the color green, but it unfortunately had the same reading (pronunciation) as the normal character for blue, "ao." Through some mechanism that is beyond my comprehension, certain objects (the green of a traffic signal, the green of a leaf on a tree) are described as "ao" (which means blue today), while the actual color green is "midori." Like bowing to a vending machine that has just verbally thanked you for making a purchase, it's all part of the wackiness of living in Japan.
There's an unfortunate phenomenon that affects all Japanese who use computers or "waapro" (word processors) at work: they lost almost all ability to write Kanji, Chinese characters. With the steady acceptance of computers into Japanese life, many people use keyboards all day long, and as a result, almost never actually write characters by hand. Because kanji is a very structured system, not writing it for long periods of time really makes you forget how to write (although reading ability is retained). I imagine this happens not only with Japanese, but with all cultures that use kanji. Sadly, I am affected by this as well, as I almost never hand-write Japanese anymore, and it's shocking when I go to write an elementary character but can't bring it up in my mind.
I remember reading through old Saint Seiya manga, while in college in the 80's, and wondering why they always write the blood type of each character along with their name, age and astrological sign. In Japan, though, it's believed that you can tell a lot about a person's personality and character traits from his blood type. Type A people are neat, tidy, and plan things meticulously, almost to a fault. Type B are "going my way" (as the Japanese say), meaning that they do their own thing without worrying about the eyes of others, and don't plan things out in advance. They can be messy, and tend to act on impulse (I am B, and my wife is always commenting on why do some things I do based on my blood type). Type O people have a private world inside their minds, supposedly, and they're quick to become passionate about something, but then change to something else just as easily. Type O people are the ability to lead others. Finally, AB have "two faces," one that they make in front of some people and another one they keep to themselves. Like the various beliefs (myths) that are related to Buddhism (such as, you're not supposed to sleep with your pillow pointing north, as this is reserved for the dead before cremation), the Japanese blood type beliefs are hard to get used to at first, but when you live here long enough, you start thinking there might be something to them after all...
We thank all customers who have helped make the 2002 Calendar Season such a big success. We've still got almost 100 2002 wall calendars in stock, almost all in the "attractive swimsuit model or actress" category (although we have quite a few of the Bondage Nude and airbrush tattoo erotica calendars too). If you can find it in your heart to take a calendar or two off our hands, we'd appreciated (and we've reduced prices yet again!) Also of note are the Ryoko Hirosue and Norika Fujiwara desktop calendar/diaries that are very cool.
For the new update to the J-List page, we've got another great volley of products for you, including:
- For fans of high-quality Japanese magazines, find the new issues of Urecco (featuring Hitomi Hasegawa, Rio Sannomiya and many more), as well as another old favorite, the lovely Cream
- We have added more bargain magazines to magazine page 3, for the thrifty-minded out there
- If you dig video CDs with your magazines, see the new Amateur Hamedori Paradise, featuring some lovely footage on two VCDs that you can play on your computer or most DVD players
- For fans of Japan's bishoujo (hentai) games, we've posted some backissues of the popular Push!! (which features a CD-ROM, so really get a great value)
- For lovers of Japanese hardcover photobooks, we've got a huge update for you, with many new hardcover photobooks as well as fresh stock of some items we've sold out of -- all at reduced prices, too
- Japanese have many interesting sexual themes in their adult products, and one of them is rape-play. For fans of these themes, see the fresh stock of K.O. we've posted
- Japan's hentai manga have become famous all over the world, and no matter how many we keep in stock, J-List customers tell us they'd like to see more. So we've got a very nice volley of new erotic manga, as well as many back in stock items for you
- For yaoi lovers, see a new issue of Double, the "Danger & Desire Comic" too
- If you love doujinshi, we've added more for you, including some very cool works by Ryu-seki-do that are new to J-List
- Our new dedication to bringing you really cool AV from Japan's top independent AV studios continues, and we've got another big update for you today. From Soft on Demand, find an excellent performance by Kurumi Morishita, a super "coupling" of two Idol Zamen bukkake performances onto one DVD, and Airi Kago performing "reverse fucking"
- From Wanz Factory, we've got a tremendously good leg fetish DVD from Mirai Hoshizaki, a chance for you go to on a "happy date" with Ai Nagase, and the very lovely Honey Morimura being made to do shameful things
- Moodyz is another very bold company, which J-list customers have requested for many months. Newly in stock is an amazing 2-video production (180 minutes) in which four lovely AV girls go to Los Angles to perform with gaijin (two black guys, two white guys and a white woman) -- very interesting!
- Also from Moodyz, a super all-new performance featuring the lovely Madoka Ozawa, out of retirement and acting again
- Waap has many nice productions, and for Waap fans, we've got a great Dream Shower starring one of my favorite actresses, Lum Nagase, followed by a super "busty lesbian orgy" offering
- From Aroma, a great live-action "cat girl fuck" with "Hello Kichi"
- Finally, in a new addition to our lonely "Indies videos (other)" page (where we'll feature productions from companies that are smaller, but still make fantastic products), see one of the hottest Kyoka Usami videos we've ever seen
- Finally for DVD customers, look on DVD page 2 ($35 and under DVDs) for some extra cheap and discounted items from Tomo
- We have many neat new toy items here at J-List. First, we've got some very cool "blank" Kubrick toys, which you can detail yourself. Gundam fans will enjoy the very cool RX-78-NT1 Gundam from Gundam 0080. And for gamers, we've got some very cool and very rare Capcom game girl figures
- Also: fresh stock of the Godzilla 2002 figure (the large one) and the "super deformed" Chewbacca
- We've got some cute metallic Hamster Club stickers, for those who find themselves doodling little anime hamsters (we warn you that this show might be the next Pokemon, if they decide to bring it to the U.S.) as well as Hamutaro and Pokemon gum (with cool stickers inside)
- We love the interest J-List customers are taking in Japanese New Years' customs, and so we've added some more cool traditional Japanese items, including a square Japanese "masu" cup for drinking sake in the New Year, and some Japanese envelopes for giving New Year's money gifts to young ones
- On our popular Japanese snacks and gum pages, we've got more super-sour Shigekix and fresh stock of "Ramune" Hi-Chew Kids
- We have a new funny Japanese sign plate in stock, in case you want to decorate your room with funny Japanse signs
- Also: new designs of Hello Kitty
- An item I've wanted to carry for a long time, the Japanese "green leaf mark" (aoba mark) which drivers who have just gotten their drivers' licenses here must put on their car
- J-List is fast becoming a major provider of Bento boxes and related items to the world, and we've got fresh stock of some of our most popular items for you
- Finally, see a nifty leopard-skin scarf to help you keep warm in the winter, more excellent Japanese warming pads (which will keep you warm in the winter), new Japanese study cards to help you learn Japanese, and more!
Bewildered at Bishoujo? Confused about Kogal? Head hurting over Hentai? If you're confused at some of the terms used on the J-List site and this updates list (which can be quite out there, we admit), be sure to check out our online J-List Glossary of Terms -- the link is on our site, right below the product category listing on the left side of your browser window. We explain all confusing terms from Anime to Tekoki and more. If there are any terms we haven't covered adequately, please let us know.
Saturday, December 15, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 15, 2001
Hello from Japan on a very windy Saturday!
The terrorist attacks have changed many things, and one area that's been affected is the tourist industry in Hawaii, which has seen a massive reduction in the numbers of Japanese tourists in the past three months. My wife receives many emails from travel agencies trying to get Japanese to start buying airline tickets again, and some of the fares are ridiculously low (I could literally fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles for less than it costs to go from Los Angeles to Monterey). Seeing this reaction by Japanese, who have also stopped going to the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa (oo, lots of terrorists there!) caused my Japanese wife to shout "Baka nihonjin!" (What stupid Japanese). The prospect of being able to go to Hawaii cheaply and not be surrounded by millions of Japanese tourists has my wife and I thinking of taking a trip soon. It's the patriotic thing to do, after all.
Last December 10 was the anniversary of the day my father passed away, which is his "mei-nichi" (or life-day) in Japanese. I've lived in Japan for nine years now, and much of the country has rubbed off on me, so much that I even start talking like a Japanese person sometimes when I'm not careful (ha-ha). But partially through my wife Chiharu, I've learned a lot about Japan's version of Buddhism and how the Japanese feel about death.
Japanese Buddhism differs from the "fasting, self-denial and enlightenment" Buddhism found in other Asian countries, in that it's really about remembering (some would say worshipping) one's ancestors. "If it weren't for your parents, and your parents' parents, you wouldn't be here," she has said tome. When foreigners come here, one of the most common first impressions they have is that "everything's about death." You're not supposed to stick your chopsticks straight up in your rice, because this is done only in connection with funerals (offering a last bowl of rice to the departed). You're never supposed to hand food from chopsticks to chopsticks because it resembles the large tongs used to remove the bones after someone is cremated. And you're not supposed to give gifts in sets of four, as the number four in Japanese is "shi" which also means "death" (thus, gift sets you buy in stores tend to have 5 of each item, not 4).
There are many customs that are connected with death in Japan, but boiled down to its core, it's about remembering those who have gone before us so that they will know they are loved and remembered. In a way, I think it gives peace to the living, who know that if they remember those who have died, they themselves will be remembered when it is their turn. (If you're curious about the life of my father, Peter R. Payne Sr., please see http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/graeme/prpayne.htm).
For the update to the site for this weekend, we've got another great volley of new products for you, including:
Have you heard J-List's ad on the radio? During the past few months we've been sponsoring an independent anime radio show on WHFC, which is heard in parts of Baltimore, Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne's counties in Maryland and Pennsylvania. If you heard about J-List through the radio spots, please let us know. Also, we've started running an ad in Animerica. If you first saw J-List because of these ads, we'd appreciate hearing from you. Thanks!
The terrorist attacks have changed many things, and one area that's been affected is the tourist industry in Hawaii, which has seen a massive reduction in the numbers of Japanese tourists in the past three months. My wife receives many emails from travel agencies trying to get Japanese to start buying airline tickets again, and some of the fares are ridiculously low (I could literally fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles for less than it costs to go from Los Angeles to Monterey). Seeing this reaction by Japanese, who have also stopped going to the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa (oo, lots of terrorists there!) caused my Japanese wife to shout "Baka nihonjin!" (What stupid Japanese). The prospect of being able to go to Hawaii cheaply and not be surrounded by millions of Japanese tourists has my wife and I thinking of taking a trip soon. It's the patriotic thing to do, after all.
Last December 10 was the anniversary of the day my father passed away, which is his "mei-nichi" (or life-day) in Japanese. I've lived in Japan for nine years now, and much of the country has rubbed off on me, so much that I even start talking like a Japanese person sometimes when I'm not careful (ha-ha). But partially through my wife Chiharu, I've learned a lot about Japan's version of Buddhism and how the Japanese feel about death.
Japanese Buddhism differs from the "fasting, self-denial and enlightenment" Buddhism found in other Asian countries, in that it's really about remembering (some would say worshipping) one's ancestors. "If it weren't for your parents, and your parents' parents, you wouldn't be here," she has said tome. When foreigners come here, one of the most common first impressions they have is that "everything's about death." You're not supposed to stick your chopsticks straight up in your rice, because this is done only in connection with funerals (offering a last bowl of rice to the departed). You're never supposed to hand food from chopsticks to chopsticks because it resembles the large tongs used to remove the bones after someone is cremated. And you're not supposed to give gifts in sets of four, as the number four in Japanese is "shi" which also means "death" (thus, gift sets you buy in stores tend to have 5 of each item, not 4).
There are many customs that are connected with death in Japan, but boiled down to its core, it's about remembering those who have gone before us so that they will know they are loved and remembered. In a way, I think it gives peace to the living, who know that if they remember those who have died, they themselves will be remembered when it is their turn. (If you're curious about the life of my father, Peter R. Payne Sr., please see http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/graeme/prpayne.htm).
For the update to the site for this weekend, we've got another great volley of new products for you, including:
- First, we've got the new issue of Gokuh in, and it's a very nice one, featuring some of the most popular girls at J-List, like Ai Kurosawa and Hitomi Hasegawa and more
- For fans of Japan's popular bishoujo (aka "hentai") games, we have the new issue of the popular Push!!, which features a CD-ROM filled with sample images, wallpapers, sound files and demos
- We've added fresh stock of very nicely-priced magazines, on magazines page 3, for bargain-hunters
- Another item that's great for value-minded customers is the DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, a magazine that gives you 2 video CDs with 2 hours of fun sampler AV footage for a great price
- For photobook lovers, we've got the new Tennyo, this time featuring the lovely Koharu Tohno with lots of excellent photos taken on Father Island in Thailand, as well as fresh stock of the Emily Yoshikawa photobook that sold out so quickly
- For bondage lovers, check out the Crime of Bondage DVD & magazine set, which features a region free DVD with 2 hours of great material
- We've got some great hentai manga for you, including new releases from Mujin Comics, Toen Comics and the hentai illustrator Wataru Watanabe, as well as a major restock of titles like Blue Eyes, Fetish Doll,
- For yaoi fans, we've got a nice new "non stop lover boys comic" for you
- For doujinshi lovers, we've got a positively killer new *all color* Street Fighter II hentai work, that's just beautiful -- why not buy 5 doujinshi, and get $4 off each one (for a total of $20)?
- The response to our new selection of Japanese indies videos and DVDs has been excellent, so we've got some more for you, from the new companies we're carrying as well as SOD
- From Moodyz, we've got the dynamite Dream Gakuen, an erotic tale of sex and private lessons (140 minutes!), and also the very interesting Black Semen, in which Kurumi Aoyama performs with dozens of black men
- From the excellent Audaz, enjoy performances by the lovely Yuna Miyazawa, who is made to do embarrassing things on camera, and a very erotic production starring the erotic and grown-up Natsumi Kawahama (video and DVD available)
- From Waap Entertainment, we have a killer "chijo" (slut) performance by the stylish Akira Watase, and an all-new Dream Shower performance by the famous Aika Miura
- From Wanz Factory, we have some excellent new products for you, including a very nice cosplay by Bunko Kanazawa, Ai Nagase's excellent "How to Perfect," Kyoka Usami's "Special AV training" and a new "Be Covered Shameful Lady" title
- The Aroma adult videos were among the most poplar added last time, and we've got a new one from this rare AV studio, a nice item for fans of "new half" (she-male) sexual themes
- From Soft on Demand, we have an incredibly bold White Sexual Desire bukkake offering, in which the lovely Shinobu Kasagi takes 112 loads of sperm willingly
- Also, positively wonderful new releases from Anna Ohura ("Maxumim Bust") and the lovely new up-and-coming Aya Otosaki both on video (see "Adult Videos (Pro)")
- Japan is experiencing hamster-mania right now, as the most popular kids show is Tottoko Hamutaro, about a cute little hamster and his friends. We've got new hamster items for you, including Hamutaro ochazuke (delicious food you eat over rice), Hamster Club chopsticks, and on our snacks page, delicious gummi Hamutaro!
- Our Japanese New Year's decorations sold out so fast, we got fresh stock of several items for you, as well as some nice new good luck decorations that promote traffic safety. Also in stock are some really cool authentic New Years' cards (nengajo)!
- We've restocked several of our bento-related items, including cute little cutters to make sausages look like penguins, tulips and crabs
- Our Japanese headbands (hachimaki) sell so well, we've restocked several of them, including "Nippon Ichi" ("The best in all Japan")
- See fresh stock of many of our popular "wacky" things from Japan, including sushi and onigiri makers, funny soy sauce holders, more stock of Japanese resume forms, Hello Kitty cookies (they're really good), the stylish coffee dripper, and our super Tofu Saver refrigeration box
- Finally, in Japan around the end of the year, department stores make "happiness bags" (fukubukuro) which have random things inside -- clothes, jewelry, various fun things. In this tradition, Mayumi has put together some very nice Hello Kitty "happiness bags" with various fun (and useful) things inside. Plus, the bag is very useful and cute, too!
Have you heard J-List's ad on the radio? During the past few months we've been sponsoring an independent anime radio show on WHFC, which is heard in parts of Baltimore, Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne's counties in Maryland and Pennsylvania. If you heard about J-List through the radio spots, please let us know. Also, we've started running an ad in Animerica. If you first saw J-List because of these ads, we'd appreciate hearing from you. Thanks!
Thursday, December 13, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 13, 2001
Greetings from a very busy J-List!
When you're a foreigner living in Japan, it's always nice to have familiar things around you. With a great job like J-List that allows me to have fun all day and go to home several times a year, I consider myself the luckiest gaijin in Japan. Because I get to home to San Diego so often, there's never a shortage of American shaving cream, breakfast cereal and Listerine at my house. Foreigners who don't get to go home as often can go to one of the many supermarkets that stock food from foreign countries, if you live in or near a city like Tokyo or Kobe, but if you're in a rural area like Gunma Prefecture, the most popular way to get familiar food is the Foreign Buyers' Club, a company started by an American family that will get you anything you want from the States, from bagels to taco shells to granola -- the only catch is that you must buy it in supermarket cases, which usually means 12 boxes of cereal, 6 huge containers of dill pickles, and so on. The URL, if you want to see their site, is http://www.fbcusa.com/public2/index.php3
One of the first things foreigners notice when they come to Japan is that all food seems to be wrapped extremely well -- far too well, some might argue. Kaori brought in some Oreos to work, and I was surprised that they were individually wrapped with color-printed foil wrapping. Pick up a Kit Kat bar, and you'll find there's another wrapping of airtight wax paper around the snack, that's not there in Kit Kats sold in the U.S. It works the other way, however, and Japanese are sometimes surprised how flimsy American packaging can be. When Kaori opened the Kraft macaroni and cheese which we ordered from the Foreign Buyers' Club, she was surprised that the macaroni was right there, inside the box, without a second airtight bag inside.
Today's the day we're going live with our huge selection of Japanese indies videos and DVDs by famous indies houses like Wanz Factory, Waap, Moodyz and Audaz. Thanks to strong customer demand and the hard work of Tomo, we've been able to obtain distribution relationships with some of Japan's best erotic AV studios, whose products are almost never available to customers living outside of Japan. Over the past half-decade there's been a massive boom of indies AV in Japan, spearheaded by companies like SOD and others, and it has split the adult video world into two groups: the "pro" video houses like Kuki, Alice Japan and Uchu Kikaku, whose products are checked by the Video Morality Association (Bideo Rinri Kyoukai), versus the independent AV studios, whose products are not checked by the VMA but are "self-checked" instead. As a rule you can expect much harder hardcore, much finer mosaics, and visible pubic hair and more. Each indies studio has a slightly different style, and so we've made separate product categories for each group. You can browse all the indies videos and DVDs viewing the "View all Indies" category.
We've got a small bug in our site, which causes the "show cart" link to show the main page instead or showing you your current shopping cart contents. We're on it, but in the meantime you can still check out normally (just add an item to your cart and then checkout from there). The new checkout script, which will have a very cool "express checkout" for making purchases fast, will be ready soon.
For this very special update, we've got a huge selection of new products for you, including:
In our ongoing efforts to improve your shopping experience at J-List, we've added a new feature to our system: an automated mail that we'll send to you when your order ships from Japan. This will let you know when you order is safely on its way to you. If you're ordering products from Japan via EMS, this system will automatically let you the EMS number so you can track your package online. Thanks for all the feedback on the J-List site and how it can be improved (and please keep it coming).
When you're a foreigner living in Japan, it's always nice to have familiar things around you. With a great job like J-List that allows me to have fun all day and go to home several times a year, I consider myself the luckiest gaijin in Japan. Because I get to home to San Diego so often, there's never a shortage of American shaving cream, breakfast cereal and Listerine at my house. Foreigners who don't get to go home as often can go to one of the many supermarkets that stock food from foreign countries, if you live in or near a city like Tokyo or Kobe, but if you're in a rural area like Gunma Prefecture, the most popular way to get familiar food is the Foreign Buyers' Club, a company started by an American family that will get you anything you want from the States, from bagels to taco shells to granola -- the only catch is that you must buy it in supermarket cases, which usually means 12 boxes of cereal, 6 huge containers of dill pickles, and so on. The URL, if you want to see their site, is http://www.fbcusa.com/public2/index.php3
One of the first things foreigners notice when they come to Japan is that all food seems to be wrapped extremely well -- far too well, some might argue. Kaori brought in some Oreos to work, and I was surprised that they were individually wrapped with color-printed foil wrapping. Pick up a Kit Kat bar, and you'll find there's another wrapping of airtight wax paper around the snack, that's not there in Kit Kats sold in the U.S. It works the other way, however, and Japanese are sometimes surprised how flimsy American packaging can be. When Kaori opened the Kraft macaroni and cheese which we ordered from the Foreign Buyers' Club, she was surprised that the macaroni was right there, inside the box, without a second airtight bag inside.
Today's the day we're going live with our huge selection of Japanese indies videos and DVDs by famous indies houses like Wanz Factory, Waap, Moodyz and Audaz. Thanks to strong customer demand and the hard work of Tomo, we've been able to obtain distribution relationships with some of Japan's best erotic AV studios, whose products are almost never available to customers living outside of Japan. Over the past half-decade there's been a massive boom of indies AV in Japan, spearheaded by companies like SOD and others, and it has split the adult video world into two groups: the "pro" video houses like Kuki, Alice Japan and Uchu Kikaku, whose products are checked by the Video Morality Association (Bideo Rinri Kyoukai), versus the independent AV studios, whose products are not checked by the VMA but are "self-checked" instead. As a rule you can expect much harder hardcore, much finer mosaics, and visible pubic hair and more. Each indies studio has a slightly different style, and so we've made separate product categories for each group. You can browse all the indies videos and DVDs viewing the "View all Indies" category.
We've got a small bug in our site, which causes the "show cart" link to show the main page instead or showing you your current shopping cart contents. We're on it, but in the meantime you can still check out normally (just add an item to your cart and then checkout from there). The new checkout script, which will have a very cool "express checkout" for making purchases fast, will be ready soon.
For this very special update, we've got a huge selection of new products for you, including:
- First, we've got new magazines posted, including (yes!) more of our popular $5-$6 magazines. Also among the reposted magazines are many "long lost" issues of Urecco that had sold out (but were really sleeping in our stock room)
- For fans of photobooks we have fresh stock of the excellent lesbian Flowers photobook, as well as a nice item featuring Eriko Satoh
- If you love Japan's famous leg, stocking and mini-skirt fetish material, look for more photobooks and other items on the leg fetish photobooks page
- For lovers of Japan's very specialized hardcore bondage photography, we highly recommend the new issue of The Most Obscene Slave, featuring 16 different models and some of the most amazing bondage and medical fetish pictures we've seen
- For fans of Japan's hentai manga, we've got a fresh update for you, with new adult comic works by Watanabe Wataru and many others, as well as fresh stock of the very popular "Nationally Treasured Breast Girl Chami"
- For fans of hentai doujinshi themes that parody existing anime and video game characters like Street Fighter II, see the new Electric Fighting Daughter vol 13
- Speaking of doujinshi, we've got some dynamite items for you from Saigado and others, but our stock is limited, so snap it up while you can -- of course our big manga sale is still on, too (save up to $4 per doujinshi you get)
- For our first massive update of Japanese indies products, we've got a huge ton of stuff for you. First, from Moodyz, we've got a positively dynamite VHS (DVD region 2 also available) starring four lovely ladies -- Bunko Kanazawa, Aika Miura, Manami Suzuki and Junko Asamiya, with 200 minutes of superior hardcore action
- From the excellent AV studio Wanz Factory, we have stock of many DVD region 2 titles (VHS are also available), including their How to Perfect series (Kanabun, Yuuna Akimoto, Maria Yumeno), Be Covered Shameful Lady (Sayaka Ijiri), AV Special Training (Yuuna Akimoto), Happy Date (the lovely Lum Nagase), and Leg Fetish World (Fuuka Sakurai as a sexy and leggy OL)
- Also from Wanz Factory, the first erotic video performed and directed by Aika Miura (very nice!), a totally new production of course
- The very eccentric and zany indies maker Aroma, who publishes only on VHS as a matter of company policy, has three very interesting titles: Ticklish Boxing Woman, Dick Girl (girls with strap-on dildos who pretend they're men), and Hard Nipples Collection (for men fascinated by what nipples look like as they get hard)
- One of the best-selling Kanabun DVDs of all tie is Go go! Kanabun Land, extra-cool for J-List customers as it's subtitled in English -- it's been re-released at a lower price so you can enjoy this great title!
- Just because we're carrying non-SOD indies titles now, doesn't mean SOD's going to go down without a fight -- see Anal Torture (a 2-in-1) and a dynamite new Do Lesbian! release (both are region-free DVD)
- More than a year ago, J-List carried some Japanese "loose socks" (the baggy socks that look so cool on Japanese high school girls). They didn't turn out to be very good, so we stopped carrying them. Now we're happy to announce that we've got two different sizes of truly deluxe and authentic Japanse loose socks (80 cm and 120 cm lengths), just for you!
- We've had some excellent last-minute additions to the calendar pages, including high-quality desktop calendars for Ryoko Hirosue and Norika Fujiwara, as well as a Morning Musume CD-ROM calendar for Windows -- and of course, we've lowered prices on another huge group of calendars to get the rest of our stock out (we've still got over 75 calendars though)
- For fans of Kodansha's bilingual comics series, which gives you authentic Japanese manga with both English and Japanese, right on the page, we present the fantastic Tale of Genji English-translated manga for you, from Kodansha
- New and restocked "cute" items at J-List include fresh stock of Picky's Bear cute Japanese bento boxes, more Hello Kitty color printed lunch bags, Hello Kitty small containers (you can put everything from mayonnaise to contact lenses in there), and more
- For fans of our popular and well-stocked Japanese snacks page, we've got fresh stock of both Blue and Black Toppo (a crunchy pretzel stick filled with chocolate or almond, very tasty), as well as fresh stock of the long-selling Sake Candy and Strawberry Milk Candy
- For those studying Japanese, or for fans of Japanese stationary with funny English on it, enjoy the new Japanese notebooks, Japanese study cards, and Japanese traditional report paper (genko-yoshi)
- Like our patented Japanese headbands? We've got fresh stock of our most popular headband ever, "Watashi wa H" (I'm a pervert), as well as the old stand-by, "Certain Victory"
- Finally, from a category I've loved ever since I was a child, we've now got some extra cool new soft vinyl toys of Godzilla, King Ghidora, Gamera and Godzilla (the "meltdown" version that's very cool).
In our ongoing efforts to improve your shopping experience at J-List, we've added a new feature to our system: an automated mail that we'll send to you when your order ships from Japan. This will let you know when you order is safely on its way to you. If you're ordering products from Japan via EMS, this system will automatically let you the EMS number so you can track your package online. Thanks for all the feedback on the J-List site and how it can be improved (and please keep it coming).
Monday, December 10, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 10, 2001
Hello again from Japan, where the opposite of "red" is "white."
Christmas is approaching fast, and Japan is getting ready for the holiday in traditional Japanese style. Christmas is a nice, warm time in Japan, but to be honest, foreigners living here get frustrated with how superficial everything can seem. It's a time of plastic battery-operated Santas that are made in Japan, and of Christmas parties, and foreigners living in Japan are apt to be asked to don "Santa wear" (a Santa Claus suit) and play Santa for Japanese kids -- I've done this a half-dozen times at least. Christmas is never an easy time to be away from home, and gaijin living in Japan are apt to be extra sensitive and homesick around this time of the year.
Much more important to the Japanese than Christmas is New Year's Day, which is a quiet, solemn event for most Japanese -- first of all, you clean your house from top to bottom, so you can start the new year off right, and replace the toothbrushes with new ones. You decorate your house with kadomatsu (decorations made of bamboo and pine, which we happen to have for sale on the J-List site today by happy chance). At night on December 31st, you put your legs in the kotatsu and watch Kohaku ("Red-White"), a 3 hour TV special featuring everyone who's anyone in the Japanese music world, and eat toshi-koshi soba ("cross into the near year" noodles), which are supposed to make you live a long time. In the U.S., Christmas is a solemn event, and New Year's Eve is time for loud parties, but in Japan, that's reversed. I imagine that Japanese living in the U.S. are extra lonely around the new year because the customs are so different.
The J-List site was down for a couple of hours on Sunday, for upgrades to the server. Sorry if you were affected by the problem. Things seem to be running smoothly on the server now. Meanwhile, on the mail sever front, several customers did get multiple copies of our December 6 mailing. We're working on the problem now and hope this mail doesn't reach anyone multiple times.
Our efforts to get our stock of calendars down continue, and we've lowered prices yet again, to almost ridiculous levels. Also, because it's hard to choose a calendar with a small scan from a thumbnail, we've opened all the calendars and taken pictures of some of the pages inside, so you can see more clearly how beautiful the pictures inside are. We've still got over 100 anime, JPOP, swimsuit idol, race queen and nude Japanese calendars. In addition to the reduced prices, get free tubes if you buy 2 or more.
For the first update of the new week, we've got some extra nice items for you, including:
By the way, remember that J-List has a price-matching policy. If you see the same item we sell at another site (as long as they're based in Japan, as we are), we'll meet or beat any price of theirs. When requesting a price match, please us the comments field of our order form, and provide the URL -- thanks!
Christmas is approaching fast, and Japan is getting ready for the holiday in traditional Japanese style. Christmas is a nice, warm time in Japan, but to be honest, foreigners living here get frustrated with how superficial everything can seem. It's a time of plastic battery-operated Santas that are made in Japan, and of Christmas parties, and foreigners living in Japan are apt to be asked to don "Santa wear" (a Santa Claus suit) and play Santa for Japanese kids -- I've done this a half-dozen times at least. Christmas is never an easy time to be away from home, and gaijin living in Japan are apt to be extra sensitive and homesick around this time of the year.
Much more important to the Japanese than Christmas is New Year's Day, which is a quiet, solemn event for most Japanese -- first of all, you clean your house from top to bottom, so you can start the new year off right, and replace the toothbrushes with new ones. You decorate your house with kadomatsu (decorations made of bamboo and pine, which we happen to have for sale on the J-List site today by happy chance). At night on December 31st, you put your legs in the kotatsu and watch Kohaku ("Red-White"), a 3 hour TV special featuring everyone who's anyone in the Japanese music world, and eat toshi-koshi soba ("cross into the near year" noodles), which are supposed to make you live a long time. In the U.S., Christmas is a solemn event, and New Year's Eve is time for loud parties, but in Japan, that's reversed. I imagine that Japanese living in the U.S. are extra lonely around the new year because the customs are so different.
The J-List site was down for a couple of hours on Sunday, for upgrades to the server. Sorry if you were affected by the problem. Things seem to be running smoothly on the server now. Meanwhile, on the mail sever front, several customers did get multiple copies of our December 6 mailing. We're working on the problem now and hope this mail doesn't reach anyone multiple times.
Our efforts to get our stock of calendars down continue, and we've lowered prices yet again, to almost ridiculous levels. Also, because it's hard to choose a calendar with a small scan from a thumbnail, we've opened all the calendars and taken pictures of some of the pages inside, so you can see more clearly how beautiful the pictures inside are. We've still got over 100 anime, JPOP, swimsuit idol, race queen and nude Japanese calendars. In addition to the reduced prices, get free tubes if you buy 2 or more.
For the first update of the new week, we've got some extra nice items for you, including:
- First, we have some excellent new adult magazines in for you, including the new Beppin School, a very special issue (and one which we're probably going to run out of quite soon)
- People told us they loved our $5 and $6 magazine sale, so we've posted another dozen or so nice backissues of popular adult magazines like Bejean and beppin School and Video Boy to magazine page 3 -- it's you last chance to get some of these issues, which are out of print permanently
- We have new photobooks for you, including both nude and sexy swimsuit model photobooks
- We've got some nice leg fetish items in stock, including the very nice Mini Suka Deluxe April 2001 issue, great for fans of Japanese "low angle" erotic photography
- For manga lovers, we've got more manga for you, including several new volumes posted, as well as fresh stock of some very popular past issues, including some popular "dick girl" themed manga that many customers enjoy
- Our doujinshi sale is proving very popular with customers. You can save $1, $2, $3 or $4 per doujinshi if you buy 2, 3, 4 or 5 or more doujinshi at a time. We've even added some great new books (very limited stock, I'm afraid) to help you pick
- For DVD fans, we've got a huge volley of new offerings, starting off with a great Zamen (sperm fetish) collection DVD and a "best selection" of jukujo (older models, aged 25-34)
- For loves of lesbian themes, enjoy SOD's latest Deep Kiss offering, Deep Kiss vol. 13, featuring 130 minutes of incredibly intense female kissing, followed by Les Animal, a very erotic indies offering from DMN
- If you love cute-as-a-button Japanese girls, we suggest you check out Ai Kuraki's Let's Do Sex in Club, loaded with dynamite sexual imagery
- Finally, for region 2 capable customers, Kurumi Morishita stars in a new kind of production by SOD, a "sell cinema" (similar to V cinema) in which Kurumi and her female staff run a traditional Japanese in "zenra" style (all nude)
- J-List makes available a wide range of adult and non-adult magazines which you can get sent to you each month, automatically, while they're still in newsstands here. Newly added to our revolving subscription page for adults is Monthly Mujin Comic, a fantastic 550+ page hentai manga you can get each month
- For anime fans, especially those who dearly love the cute female anime characters, we offer a monthly subscription to Otomex, the "new style heroine magazine," which covers anime and game girl characters, especially the pretty ones
- Christmas is almost here, but more important than Christmas is New Years' Day (Oshogatsu), and we've decided to carry a large selection of very nice New Years' decorations for those who want to decorate their home or car in Japanse style. We've also got some good luck charms for traffic safety -- see these on the "Traditional wacky things" page
- Winter is approaching fast, and in Japan, the cold "kara-kaze" winds are really chilling everything. To combat the cold, we're carrying the very popular Japanese hand-warmers we had last year. Just pop open one of the packets and it will become warm in a few minutes, and the heat lasts for up to 18 hours (really, it does!)
- On our "cute things" page, we've got fork and knife sets for Ojamajo Doremi and Masked Rider Agido, and some cool chopsticks for fans of the silly Japanese character Bad Badtz-Maru
- For anime card collectors, be sure to check out the Inuyasha card game, featuring beautiful printing and laminating
- We have some wacky new signs, including a deluxe Japanese signplate that says "please take your shoes off here"
- We've got fresh stock of the delicious Tsubu Tsubu Pocky strawberry flavor, with real bits of fresh strawberries in them
- For fans of our Japanese chewing gum, we've got a new flavor, Lotte Strawberry Gum, as well as fresh stock of Japanese Ume (plum), La France (pear) gum and Black Black (spicy caffeine gum)
- Finally, look for a wacky heart-shaped ice cube tray, some Japanese oil paper to clean the oil from your face (with real flakes of gold inside), more wacky Japanese ear cleaners with light, and more!
By the way, remember that J-List has a price-matching policy. If you see the same item we sell at another site (as long as they're based in Japan, as we are), we'll meet or beat any price of theirs. When requesting a price match, please us the comments field of our order form, and provide the URL -- thanks!
Saturday, December 08, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 8, 2001
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Thursday, December 06, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 6, 2001
Hello again from your good friends in Japan!
When foreigners come to Japan for the first time, one of the first cultural differences they run into is the Japanese custom of taking shoes off before going into a house. Japanese homes (and some offices, such as J-List) have a lowered area at the front door called a "genkan," where you leave your shoes before going inside. After you've lived here a little while, it becomes second nature to open the door, kick off your shoes (or if you're the obsessive type, neatly arrange them so that they all line up), and go inside. Seeing foreigners on TV wearing muddy shoes on plush, clean carpeting starts to look really weird after a while. To the Japanese sense of cleanliness, anything having to do with your feet is dirty under any circumstances -- actually, the "genkan" where you leave your shoes in modern Japanse homes was much larger hundreds of years ago, and livestock were kept there, so that the humans living in the house could benefit from the warmth of the animals. Because you have to take your shoes off a dozen times a day in Japan, you tend to get very good at choosing shoes that can be put on easily.
The Japanese also have some interesting customs when it comes to their cars. First of all, auto theft is quite uncommon here, so it's not at all rare to see someone leave his beautiful Nissan Fairlady Z parked in front of the "conbini" (convenience store) with the car unlocked and running. The idea that his car might be stolen just doesn't enter into the thinking here, so it's perfectly safe. Japanese cars have the steering wheel on the right side of the car, as in England, and the Japanese have perfected the art of starting the car without getting in it (since the ignition is easily accessible on that side of the car). When stopped at a light at night, it's considered good manners to turn your headlights down to "park" so you don't blind the person in front of you, and when someone lets you go ahead of them in traffic, flashing your emergency lights at them once or twice conveys your thanks. Japanese love their cars, and there are many interesting products that allow drivers to deck their vehicles out, including bizarre and interesting accessories, gaudy air fresheners, and for those with a lot of money to spend, funky custom lights for the outside of your car, such as special flashing lights that replace your normal brake lights. Great for picking up the girls.
Announcing the Big 2001 Doujinshi sale! To say thanks for your past support this year, we're having a big sale on hentai doujinshi. Effective immediately, we've got the following discounts :
Order 2 doujinshi, get $1 off each (for a total of $2 off)
Order 3 doujinshi, get $2 off each (total $6)
Order 4 doujinshi, get $3 off each (total $9)
Order 5 doujinshi or more, get $4 off each book
All doujinshi hentai comics we have in stock are part of the sale, including the new ones we're posting today. The discount will be applied when we process your order and send you the total (the discount won't be recognized by the shopping cart, but we'll factor it in before processing the order).
Also: announcing the 2001 Year-End Bishoujo Game Free Shipping Sale! Until the end of the month, we'll give free shipping to U.S. and Canadian customers on our massive lineup of English-language bishoujo CD-ROM products, when you buy two or more at a time. All products are part of the sale, including JAST USA and Milky House CD-ROM games, as well as the excellent products from Peach Princess, Hobibox Europe and Himeya. This is a great chance to get the titles you've been wanting, and save some money, too.
The past few years has seen a massive blooming of "indies" (independent) adult video in Japan, by companies like Soft on Demand, which are separate from large AV studios like Kuki, Uchu Kikaku, and Alice Japan. We've got some excellent news for fans of authentic Japanese indies AV, because recently, J-List has been able to form relationships with new Japanese AV distributors which will enable us to carry many new indies video products in the future. While we've always had a very close relationship with Soft on Demand -- we sell so many SOD videos and DVDs that Tomo was invited to attend a special retreat at the company, where he met Kurumi Morishita, Nanase Nanami and Tohjiro himself -- we haven't been able to get products by companies like Moodyz, Aroma, Audaz, Waap and Wanz Factory. Well, this will be changing soon, so fans who have been requesting these products will have something to look forward to. Tomo asked me to mention if you want to special order products from these companies, he can get most anything, so please email him. One caveat, however: unlike Soft on Demand, which is embracing DVD in a big way, most of the products put out by these other indies AV companies are available on VHS only, or on region 2 DVD. We'll make sure these titles are available to you on both formats as much as we can.
More improvements to the J-List site are coming soon. We'll be upgrading our check-out system soon to an improved one, which should hopefully solve some of the problems some have experienced with the current system. We're not sure when the new system will go live, and I'll try to give advance notice in case there are any problems with it. As always, if there's ever a problem with the J-List ordering system, you can always use the secure email form to send us your order.
For this evening's update, we've got a very nice volley of new products, including:
We receive questions about some Japanse CD-ROM and VCD/DVD products and how they work with English equipment, and so we'd like to answer some of these questions. In general, all bishoujo and game CD-ROMs you see at J-List are made for Windows, and should have no problems playing on supported OS versions. If you are interested in some of the magazines that come with one or two video CDs (MPEG-1), these are also very easy to play. On Windows, you can play them with any Video CD player, which are readily available online; for Macintosh in OS 8-9, use the standard Quicktime player. Video CDs also play in most DVD players, although the quality is closer to VHS than full DVD.
For those interested in the high-quality and features of DVD, 99% of the DVDs that J-List carries are "region free," so you can play them without worrying about handling the special region 2 codes. A few adult DVDs (they're located on a special page), as well as all Japan-released anime and hentai DVD titles, are always zoned for region 2 (Europe and Japan). To view them in the U.S. or Canada, you need a region-free DVD player (see the top of the region 2 DVD page for several links to ones we recommend), or else you can set your computer's DVD player to view region 2 discs (although you can only change this setting 5 times on most DVD drives). Personally, I've gotten hundreds of hours of use out of the region-free DVD player I bought for myself, and since certain DVD titles from Japan are simply unavailable in region-free format, we recommend getting a region-2 player if you're interested in those items.
We've placed links to some sample movie clippings from Soft on Demand's titles. The titles are in Windows Media format. To find some of the products that have movies available, you can search for "sample movie" in the J-List search engine.
When foreigners come to Japan for the first time, one of the first cultural differences they run into is the Japanese custom of taking shoes off before going into a house. Japanese homes (and some offices, such as J-List) have a lowered area at the front door called a "genkan," where you leave your shoes before going inside. After you've lived here a little while, it becomes second nature to open the door, kick off your shoes (or if you're the obsessive type, neatly arrange them so that they all line up), and go inside. Seeing foreigners on TV wearing muddy shoes on plush, clean carpeting starts to look really weird after a while. To the Japanese sense of cleanliness, anything having to do with your feet is dirty under any circumstances -- actually, the "genkan" where you leave your shoes in modern Japanse homes was much larger hundreds of years ago, and livestock were kept there, so that the humans living in the house could benefit from the warmth of the animals. Because you have to take your shoes off a dozen times a day in Japan, you tend to get very good at choosing shoes that can be put on easily.
The Japanese also have some interesting customs when it comes to their cars. First of all, auto theft is quite uncommon here, so it's not at all rare to see someone leave his beautiful Nissan Fairlady Z parked in front of the "conbini" (convenience store) with the car unlocked and running. The idea that his car might be stolen just doesn't enter into the thinking here, so it's perfectly safe. Japanese cars have the steering wheel on the right side of the car, as in England, and the Japanese have perfected the art of starting the car without getting in it (since the ignition is easily accessible on that side of the car). When stopped at a light at night, it's considered good manners to turn your headlights down to "park" so you don't blind the person in front of you, and when someone lets you go ahead of them in traffic, flashing your emergency lights at them once or twice conveys your thanks. Japanese love their cars, and there are many interesting products that allow drivers to deck their vehicles out, including bizarre and interesting accessories, gaudy air fresheners, and for those with a lot of money to spend, funky custom lights for the outside of your car, such as special flashing lights that replace your normal brake lights. Great for picking up the girls.
Announcing the Big 2001 Doujinshi sale! To say thanks for your past support this year, we're having a big sale on hentai doujinshi. Effective immediately, we've got the following discounts :
Order 2 doujinshi, get $1 off each (for a total of $2 off)
Order 3 doujinshi, get $2 off each (total $6)
Order 4 doujinshi, get $3 off each (total $9)
Order 5 doujinshi or more, get $4 off each book
All doujinshi hentai comics we have in stock are part of the sale, including the new ones we're posting today. The discount will be applied when we process your order and send you the total (the discount won't be recognized by the shopping cart, but we'll factor it in before processing the order).
Also: announcing the 2001 Year-End Bishoujo Game Free Shipping Sale! Until the end of the month, we'll give free shipping to U.S. and Canadian customers on our massive lineup of English-language bishoujo CD-ROM products, when you buy two or more at a time. All products are part of the sale, including JAST USA and Milky House CD-ROM games, as well as the excellent products from Peach Princess, Hobibox Europe and Himeya. This is a great chance to get the titles you've been wanting, and save some money, too.
The past few years has seen a massive blooming of "indies" (independent) adult video in Japan, by companies like Soft on Demand, which are separate from large AV studios like Kuki, Uchu Kikaku, and Alice Japan. We've got some excellent news for fans of authentic Japanese indies AV, because recently, J-List has been able to form relationships with new Japanese AV distributors which will enable us to carry many new indies video products in the future. While we've always had a very close relationship with Soft on Demand -- we sell so many SOD videos and DVDs that Tomo was invited to attend a special retreat at the company, where he met Kurumi Morishita, Nanase Nanami and Tohjiro himself -- we haven't been able to get products by companies like Moodyz, Aroma, Audaz, Waap and Wanz Factory. Well, this will be changing soon, so fans who have been requesting these products will have something to look forward to. Tomo asked me to mention if you want to special order products from these companies, he can get most anything, so please email him. One caveat, however: unlike Soft on Demand, which is embracing DVD in a big way, most of the products put out by these other indies AV companies are available on VHS only, or on region 2 DVD. We'll make sure these titles are available to you on both formats as much as we can.
More improvements to the J-List site are coming soon. We'll be upgrading our check-out system soon to an improved one, which should hopefully solve some of the problems some have experienced with the current system. We're not sure when the new system will go live, and I'll try to give advance notice in case there are any problems with it. As always, if there's ever a problem with the J-List ordering system, you can always use the secure email form to send us your order.
For this evening's update, we've got a very nice volley of new products, including:
- First of all, the excellent game Love Love Show is shipping! This is a really unique game from Hobibox Europe and Love Gun, a very complex and fun game that's actually three games in one. An excellent and 100% uncensored bishoujo game for the English-speaking world (and yes, you can get it with free shipping with our special sale)
- For fans of lovely adult video idols from Japan, we've got the new issues of Best Video and Video Boy, both very nice "all purpose" adult video magazines that follow all AV idols, both professional and indies (independent), for your enjoyment
- We have some nice erotic photobooks for you, including the erotic Kumano Pooh-ko's "Seduction," and the very lovely Minami Yui's "First Eros" erotic photobook
- Also: fresh stock of K.O., the deluxe photobook for fans of O.K.
- Also for photobook lovers, fresh stock of a perennial classic -- Santa Fe, the massive nude photobook released by 1990's actress-idol Rie Miyazawa that shocked Japan
- We have tons of great new erotic manga for you, both new volumes as well as fresh stock of popular books that we couldn't keep in stock -- check out the manga pages now
- For yaoi fans or fans of Japanese homosexual culture, we've got limited stock of Badi, the Japanese "gay life magazine" (we'll carry more items like this on the yaoi page if there are requests)
- Kicking off or big doujinshi sale, we've got a new volley of very nice doujinshi for you, with some unique and rare items, at major savings because of our sale -- see the dozen or so new items on the J-List site before they start to sell out
- For DVD collectors, we've got some great new titles by Soft on Demand, including famous AV director TOHJIRO's self-produced sex offerings in which he gives up filming gorgeous girls having sex with AV actors, and has sex with them himself -- 150 minutes of good action in the Blue Desire DVD
- 16 lovely Japanese kogals agree to play rock, scissors, paper -- if they win, they get money, but if they lose, they have to get undressed inside the Magic Mirror Bus
- There's a new 2-in-1 release by Deep's, Get Panty (which features guys adept at convincing kogals to give them their panties), and Peroman (in-street oral sex)
- We've got an excellent new indies erotic hardcore DVD for you -- an excellent erotic performance by Rinka Yaguchi with the bizarre title of "Embezzle my Honey Pie"
- For those with players that can read region 2 DVDs, either separate players or the DVD drives in their computers, we've got a nice item: a very erotic Bunko Kanazawa/Ryo Takami title featuring some outrageously erotic themes
- Also for region 2-capable customers, two excellent new Night Shift Hospital DVD releases by Tachibana Seven
- DVD fans should look through all our pages for some extra-good bargains that we've posted, including many discs that come with free shipping, too
- Finally, for adult AV fans, we've got a dynamite new series of Crystal Card nude AV idol cards, featuring many lovely girls from Crystal Eizo
- Newly added Japanese snack and food items include a new toasted shreaded ika (squid) snack that goes great with beer, and delicious Japanese "ochazuke," a food containing green tea, nori, and salmon you sprinkle over rice, then pour boiling water
- Popular new Japanese sign plates include a new No Smoking sign plate, as well as a very nice "It is forbidden to wear shoes here" sign plate
- For anime fans, some special items: first, a super-deluxe extra-large "completed model" made of die-cast metal of the coolest ship from the Yamato/Star Blazers universe, the Andromeda, the flagship of the Earth Defense Fleet
- Then, a new Kubrick Evangelion toy, featuring the Eva-03 Production Model, a figure of Kouji, and a figure of one of the Angels
- New "cute" items include a silly but cute toothbrush holder, and fresh stock of our Hello Kitty straws and spoon/fork set
- For fans of our bento (boxed lunch) related items, see several new items, including fresh stock of the little cutter that turns a small sausage into a little cute penguin -- great for eating lunch, Japanese-style
- We've got wacky Japanese notebooks for you, with funny English printed on them, as well as study notebooks useful for anyone trying to learn hiragana and katakana, the two basic Japanese writing systems
- Finally, on our wacky things from Japan "traditional items" page, which is always popular with J-List customers, find a very nice bamboo cup that would be great for drinking tea, as well as an authentic bamboo soba dish, and more!
We receive questions about some Japanse CD-ROM and VCD/DVD products and how they work with English equipment, and so we'd like to answer some of these questions. In general, all bishoujo and game CD-ROMs you see at J-List are made for Windows, and should have no problems playing on supported OS versions. If you are interested in some of the magazines that come with one or two video CDs (MPEG-1), these are also very easy to play. On Windows, you can play them with any Video CD player, which are readily available online; for Macintosh in OS 8-9, use the standard Quicktime player. Video CDs also play in most DVD players, although the quality is closer to VHS than full DVD.
For those interested in the high-quality and features of DVD, 99% of the DVDs that J-List carries are "region free," so you can play them without worrying about handling the special region 2 codes. A few adult DVDs (they're located on a special page), as well as all Japan-released anime and hentai DVD titles, are always zoned for region 2 (Europe and Japan). To view them in the U.S. or Canada, you need a region-free DVD player (see the top of the region 2 DVD page for several links to ones we recommend), or else you can set your computer's DVD player to view region 2 discs (although you can only change this setting 5 times on most DVD drives). Personally, I've gotten hundreds of hours of use out of the region-free DVD player I bought for myself, and since certain DVD titles from Japan are simply unavailable in region-free format, we recommend getting a region-2 player if you're interested in those items.
We've placed links to some sample movie clippings from Soft on Demand's titles. The titles are in Windows Media format. To find some of the products that have movies available, you can search for "sample movie" in the J-List search engine.
Tuesday, December 04, 2001
Greetings from J-List December 4, 2001
Hello and greetings again from J-List!
First of all, we apologize if this mail reaches you multiple times. We're having an issue with our mail server that causes mails to be sent multiple times to some users. We're on the issue and should have it fixed soon.
Happiness over the recent Royal Birth continues in Japan. Department stores had special sales to commemorate the new baby, and bakeries baked special "congratulations" bread which customers lined up to buy, and in one amusement park, anyone named Masako can get in free this week. (We've got a friend named Masako, although she's in the U.S.)
It's always hard to be an expat and live in another country. No matter how long I stay in Japan, I still feel that things from home are "better." American medicine works the best for me, and there's nothing like American Cream of Wheat for breakfast on cold mornings (I've even turned my kids on to it, although my wife sticks her nose up at it, since it looks like "okayu," a watery rice dish Japanese give to sick people). While there are many familiar things to an American living in Japan (McDonald's, Starbucks, Time Magazine), I don't think I could get by without the Internet to give me all the American culture I need. Amazon.com is also a Godsend for someone like me -- a far cry from nine years ago, when we had to scour the town to find a store that had some imported Pringles or Doritos, or travel to Tokyo to one of two bookstores that carried English books.
It's funny how when you live in Japan, you've suddenly got all kinds of things in common with other foreigners living here. For various reasons -- perhaps because of the good economy in the U.S. during the end of the 1990's, Americans are not at all common here in Japan at all. Aided by the "working holiday" exchange program (or waa-holi as the Japanese like to call it), which helps people from Canada, Australia, and many other nations get visas to work in Japan quite easily. I have more non-American friends than American friends, and it's quite interesting to talk American politics and other subjects with people from Canada or New Zealand and see their viewpoints. Just as Japanese studying in the U.S. often get lumped into vanilla group labeled "Asians," foreigners working in Japan are all "gaijin" (or in its more politically correct version, "gaikokujin").
We're now in the month of December, and we've still got lots of very nice anime, JPOP, Japanese idol, and sexy and nude calendars to choose from. In fact, we've got a few too many, so we're having a big sale on our remaining stock of 2002 calendars, lowering prices on all calendars as our way of saying thanks for helping us get our stock levels down. Also, if you buy two or more calendars, we'll give you your mailing tubes free. Calendars will be disappearing from the J-List site as they sell out, or as we post them to eBay, so if you see something you'd like, please snap it up. We can get calendars to you by Christmas, although the cutoff for airmail orders going to the U.S. is Dec 9-10.
For the new update, we've got some very nice items for you, including:
We try hard to keep all sizes of our wacky Japanese T-shirts in stock at all times, but sometimes one size or another sells out. We found 7 shirts with our Dirty American Devil (Kichiku Beihei) in size medium, which had been sold out -- so if you're interested in this shirt in size M, please get it before they sell out again. Some shirts, such as our "Forbidden to Urinate" shirts will not be reprinted, so if you want one, you should pick one up soon.
First of all, we apologize if this mail reaches you multiple times. We're having an issue with our mail server that causes mails to be sent multiple times to some users. We're on the issue and should have it fixed soon.
Happiness over the recent Royal Birth continues in Japan. Department stores had special sales to commemorate the new baby, and bakeries baked special "congratulations" bread which customers lined up to buy, and in one amusement park, anyone named Masako can get in free this week. (We've got a friend named Masako, although she's in the U.S.)
It's always hard to be an expat and live in another country. No matter how long I stay in Japan, I still feel that things from home are "better." American medicine works the best for me, and there's nothing like American Cream of Wheat for breakfast on cold mornings (I've even turned my kids on to it, although my wife sticks her nose up at it, since it looks like "okayu," a watery rice dish Japanese give to sick people). While there are many familiar things to an American living in Japan (McDonald's, Starbucks, Time Magazine), I don't think I could get by without the Internet to give me all the American culture I need. Amazon.com is also a Godsend for someone like me -- a far cry from nine years ago, when we had to scour the town to find a store that had some imported Pringles or Doritos, or travel to Tokyo to one of two bookstores that carried English books.
It's funny how when you live in Japan, you've suddenly got all kinds of things in common with other foreigners living here. For various reasons -- perhaps because of the good economy in the U.S. during the end of the 1990's, Americans are not at all common here in Japan at all. Aided by the "working holiday" exchange program (or waa-holi as the Japanese like to call it), which helps people from Canada, Australia, and many other nations get visas to work in Japan quite easily. I have more non-American friends than American friends, and it's quite interesting to talk American politics and other subjects with people from Canada or New Zealand and see their viewpoints. Just as Japanese studying in the U.S. often get lumped into vanilla group labeled "Asians," foreigners working in Japan are all "gaijin" (or in its more politically correct version, "gaikokujin").
We're now in the month of December, and we've still got lots of very nice anime, JPOP, Japanese idol, and sexy and nude calendars to choose from. In fact, we've got a few too many, so we're having a big sale on our remaining stock of 2002 calendars, lowering prices on all calendars as our way of saying thanks for helping us get our stock levels down. Also, if you buy two or more calendars, we'll give you your mailing tubes free. Calendars will be disappearing from the J-List site as they sell out, or as we post them to eBay, so if you see something you'd like, please snap it up. We can get calendars to you by Christmas, although the cutoff for airmail orders going to the U.S. is Dec 9-10.
For the new update, we've got some very nice items for you, including:
- First, we've got the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, two excellent magazines that feature all-Japanese models, photographed entirely by all-Japanese photographers
- Also for fans of adult Japanese magazines, we've got the new OK magazine, for fans of "rape play" themes, as well as the very erotic new Hit Parade
- For photobook lovers, be sure to check out the very lovely Baccara Five, a beautiful team of bikini babes, as well as a positively dynamite item for fans of Race Queens
- We have a very nice erotic update to our manga page for you, with a large selection of very nice volumes by the most famous artists and publishing houses in Japan
- For doujinshi lovers, see several all-new doujinshi volumes posted, all nice new additions from the most recent Comic Market
- For lovers of SOD's long-selling Deep Kiss series, we've got an extra special new offering: the Deep Kiss First Lesbian Hard Version, featuring girls going far beyond mere deep kissing...
- Also from Soft on Demand, a super "best selection" for fans of the lovely elf-like Nao Hirosue, and a super erotic "dick girl" DVD featuring girls with strap-on dildos
- Other DVD titles include a very rare and interesting limited offering for fans of SOD's darker themes, and a rare item, a DVD featuring larger girls, a theme not handled in Japan very often
- For fans of Japan's truly beautiful idols, we highly recommend the idol DVD of Megumi Yasu, the charming and beautiful model who has graced recent issues of Urecco and Penthouse
- For anime fans, we're proud to bring you the Japanese DVD release of Grave of the Fireflies, a moving tale of two children growing up in war-torn Japan at the end of World War II (includes Japanese subtitles)
- Also: stock of "completed figures" of Rei Ayanami and Soryu Asuka Langley, with many attachable extras for super detail
- For those with an esoteric twist, we've the photobook of the charismatic prime minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi
- For kids who like to draw and doodle, we've got some 'free notebook' (meaning that you can use them any way you like) from Pocket Monster and Ham-Taro, both of which come with stickers inside too
- We've got more 'wacky' traditional things from Japan, including
- For Getter Robo fans, there are several really cool toys recreated from 1970's versions
- Finally, today's wacky things from Japan new items include the ultimate way to store and chill tofu (no, really!),
We try hard to keep all sizes of our wacky Japanese T-shirts in stock at all times, but sometimes one size or another sells out. We found 7 shirts with our Dirty American Devil (Kichiku Beihei) in size medium, which had been sold out -- so if you're interested in this shirt in size M, please get it before they sell out again. Some shirts, such as our "Forbidden to Urinate" shirts will not be reprinted, so if you want one, you should pick one up soon.
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